Breaking the Disney Spell

In his essay "Breaking the Disney Spell," Jack Zipes articulates a feeling likely experienced in part by anyone who has grown up watching Disney films and then grown up to give more thought to what they were all about, exactly.  However, it was hard to read this essay and definitively take one side or another--and perhaps ill-advised to do so.  Jack Zipes in a renowned scholar of literary fairy tales, whose work is informed by extensive research into the storytelling tradition behind the stories we have all heard as children.  Walt Disney built a media empire on a very specific interpretation of these well-known stories.  Both have a vested interest in maintaining one extreme or the other, but as a reader, it's hard not to consider your own history and relationship to these stories that are uniquely personal.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I agree with Zipes on a lot of the points he makes, at other times I wanted to tell the man to take several deep breaths and think about dolphins or something equally calming.  

It isn't that I don't agree with Zipes that the Disney version of Snow White takes a number of artistic liberties with the original tale--but so did the 1916 version that we watched, and Zipes does not seem to have a problem with that, perhaps because that version was not part of a cultural phenomenon on the level that Disney's films were.  I do agree that the Disney version of Snow White is vastly different, in tone especially, from the Grimm original.  And I also agree that Snow White, and a number of Disney's other fairy tale films, perpetuate an idea of a patriarchal, male-driven structure (I really wish this most recent Disney Princess craze would end and soon, for all our sakes.)  I find all of those points to be relevant, it's just that I don't think one interpretation of a story with such a rich history behind it is going to ruin or change that story forever.  The very nature of fairy tales is to be passed from person to person and reinterpreted, so how, in essence, is a movie any different from that idea?

That being said, it doesn't mean that I particularly like Disney's interpretation of the Snow White character.  I actually caught myself rooting for the Evil Queen a couple of times, because Snow White was just so annoying.  

Disney

I believe that the main point of this essay was to show how Disney commercialized fairy tales through his films and how this "'violated' the literary genre of the fairy tale" (352).

In class, Professor Figal told us to pick an issue or topic in the Zipes essay to "grapple with." An issue I had with this essay was that Zipes seemed to accuse Disney of sacrificing the old oral and literary traditions of fairy tales for the sake of appealing to his consumers and gaining fame and fortune. I feel that the beauty of fairy tales is how they are able to change and morph depending on who tells them, who is listening, and the circumstances and culture under which these fairy tales get passed along. Disney being a household name that we all associate with fairy tales is something that should be admired, not condemned. Maybe Disney was ultimately in it to make money and gain recognition, but in the end, our culture today is defined by these Disney films, and I just see Disney as another method of passing along fairy tales to the next generation.

Zipes

dentify the thesis/the argument(s) in Jack Zipes' essay , Breaking the Disney Spell’. Do you agree or disagree with him? Justify the stance you take.

While the essay was well written, I found it difficult to take apart one thesis or argument in Zipes essay, "Breaking the Disney Spell".
I found the main argument to be that Disney was taking the classic fairy tales, and minimizing the lessons, replacing them with menial tales that were written and created to make money, and to show and demonstrate his skills as the owner of a company, and an animator.
I partially agree with what Zipes is saying. I do believe, since as he states that Disney was one of the first to use techniques in his animations and films, that Disney wasn't in the business to preserve and demonstrate classic tales. Disney adds too many commercial aspects into his films and stories to really care about the integrity of the stories themselves.

Assignment 4- 3.Feb 2009

Hey Nikki, Erin, Benton, Michelle, Tiffany and Emily,

Below is your assignment:

Identify the thesis/the argument(s) in Jack Zipes' essay , Breaking the Disney Spell’. Do you agree or disagree with him? Justify the stance you take.

• Posts to be sent in by Midnight on Tuesday
• Comments on two other posts to be posted by Midnight on Wednesday

Looking forward to what you have to say.

Ann

Good Going!!

Hi there!
Great to have all your posts in...Looking forward to your views on what you fellow bloggers had to say.
Ann

Roald Dahl's Retelling of Red Riding Hood

In analyzing Dahl's interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood, I could write a long, dry treatise on how it is informed by the (troubling?) climate from whence it came (OMG kids!  And guns!  Kids with guns, OMG!!!)  This kind of argument is logical, but fails to take into account something important about Dahl's work in general: he is a brilliant satirist, and his collection of Revolting Rhymes is no exception.

The thing about Dahl's work that makes it so appealing for me is that he recognizes that children are not oblivious to the message that the world is neither a safe nor forgiving place--ironically, a message driven home in the original versions of the very stories he satirizes in Revolting Rhymes.  He recognizes this, but is never patronizing.  Instead, he approaches warty realities in a way that should be applicable at any stage in life--with a certain degree of realism, but most importantly, with a cool head and a sense of humor.  

In a sense, Dahl is responding to the way he most likely heard the stories told growing up--with the moral "OBEY YOUR PARENTS OR ELSE!!!" and certainly with the notion that the child protagonist can do nothing to save herself and is at the mercy of the adults in her life.  Similar to the way his other stories feature independent children taking matters into their own hands, Dahl's Red Riding Hood isn't about to take any of the Wolf's nonsense about making her his next meal, and promptly takes him out.  

Dahl

Roald Dahl's version of "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" was published originally in 1982 in "Revolting Rhymes."

Based on this information and on Shavit's Method, it is easier to tell that the intended audience for the poem is most likely a teenage/adult contemporary audience. The effectiveness of the humor in the twist is the assumed reader's knowledge of the original version. The plot takes on a humorous twist when the wolf tries to correct Red Riding Hood on the questions she asks. In response to his attempted dinner she whips out a gun and kills him and makes a fur coat out of him.

This contemporary twist of the gun and fur coat as well as the wolf telling Red what she is supposed to say lets the reader know that the intended audience is an older reader who would understand the humor. The title of the book it was published in also illustrates this idea. The main argument for believing he intended the reader to be older is that he is assuming the reader knows the Grimm brothers' wording. One would presumably have gained this knowledge in one's childhood and therefore could understand the humor in an altered version later in life.

Dahl

Roald Dahl’s story were characterized by their unexpected endings, lack of sentimentality, and dark humour.

Having fought in World War II, Roald Dahl was obviously exposed to a lot of gruesomeness and death. Therefore, his poetry can come off with a lot of dark humour, because humour is a means of making light of something sinister. After being in the war, he probably believed that people needed to not take everything so seriously. I was surprised though, that in the poem, he made the joke of Little Red Riding Hood pulling out a pistol. I was surprised by the violence on the part of a female character.

It seems as if the audience was for both adults and children. Children in the sense that it is pedagogical, and adults in the sense that there is a lot of black humour. Dahl did seek to educate and discipline his children readers, the research says, but he also wrote for adults. Perhaps he made the poem so lighthearted because he wanted to preserve some of children’s naiveity and innocence, after getting much of his innocence and naivety destroyed in the war. Despite the dark humour, it seems as though the tale was meant to preserve some purity in children. The elements of sarcasm are meant for adults, though, such as the dialogue. According to the research, “children love his poems and stories because he writes from their point of view, and, in his books adults are often the villains or are just plain stupid.”

The children characters were often made gluttonous, like Augustus Gloop in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” They often have a serious lesson to learn, or punishment to suffer.
January 27, 2009 6:45 PM

Roald Dahl LRRH

Roald Dahl
Dahl's version of Little Red Riding Hood, "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" was written as a compilation of short stories in 1995. There are a few Roald Dahl poem versions of fairy tales included in this book, "Revolting Rhymes"

audience: I believe the audience for this particular version of Little Red Riding Hood would be older children, many of whom have already read and loved Roald Dahl's writing. I would even go as far as to place the parents of these children in the audience as well. Roald Dahl is not only writing to entertain the children, but also the parents. Many of his books are like this.

culture & time: This represents a new culture and time, without many morals and limitations. Roald Dahl's violence and independence of Little Red Riding Hood show a different interpretation on what goes on in today's world (I am considering 1995 close enough to today's world to consider both the same). Reading this version did not phase me the way that it might have phased people years ago. The only moral in this story is to watch out for wolfs, but it doesn't really go into the sexual content. It also shows the little girl as independant and capable of taking care of herself, unlike many of the previous versions read. This is a change, but in today's world we do promote more independence and have more gender equality. If a little girl was shown as weak, that would not go over as well. This version also shows how violence is almost accepted as the norm today. It is almost like, "oh, of course Little Red Riding Hood would take out a pistol, shoot the wolf, and then wear him as a coat." Little kids, rather then the previous huntsman, have access to guns, and this is considered a norm. Violent video games and television shows are so common that it isn't even more then a short pause, and an "of course".

Thurber

--> Outline who you think the audience is and what the fairy tale's retelling says about the culture and time in which it is written:

James Thurber was best known for his contribution to "The New Yorker" magazine, whose audience is very much adult. It is clear that his version of Little Red Riding Hood "The Little Girl and the Wolf" was intended for adults as well.

According to Wikipedia, Thurber's fables were often satirical and that the "moral" was really more of a punchline. In his fairy tale "The Little Girl and the Wolf" Thurber very briefly sets up the Grimm/Perrault version of Little Red Riding Hood, with the little girl carrying a basket of food to her grandmother and encountering the wolf in the woods. However, Thurber chooses the point when the little girl sees the wolf at grandma's house to completely take off in a different direction. Thurber comments that "the wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge." This is where it first becomes obvious that Thurber intended this fairy tale to be enjoyed by adults because children would most definitely not understand this comparison.
Thurber finishes off the story with the little girl shooting the wolf with an automatic - something also not intended for children. At the end, the moral is indeed a punchline that would be enjoyed by the adults reading it.

This fairy tale was written in 1940, right in the middle of World War II. It was a time when people were in need of funny, lighthearted stories like "The Little Girl and the Wolf" in order to take their minds off of the war that was going on. Thurber's comedic tone definitely represents this desire for people at the time to have something that could take their minds off of hard times.

Assignment 3- 27.Jan 2009

Hi Nikki, Erin, Benton, Michelle, Emily and Tiffany,

Below is the assignment, to which you will send in responses by Midnight on Tuesday.

You have read Shavit's essay comparing the Perrault and Grimm versions of'Little Red Riding Hood'. Using Shavit's method, consider one of the other versions you read for this week (Dahl, Calvino, Thurber, Chiang Mi). With a little research (you may use Wikipedia, since this is not a research paper),outline who you think the audience is and what the fairy tale's retelling says about the culture and time in which it is written.

Looking forward to your posts,

Ann

H&G interpretation

So we discussed through email our thoughts on the film.

Hansel and Gretel would be 13 and 11 respectively as given in the question. The movie would focus on their relationship, especially the care-taking nature of Hansel, like Keene demonstrated in The Juniper Tree. The setting would remain an unspecified location with a very medieval looking forest.

Erin brought up the idea of showing sympathy for the parents. We would want to see the parents grapple with the task of trying to feed the family and failing, and we would not want the decision to leave them in the forest be a premeditated one, just like the stepmother in the Juniper Tree and the way she didn't intentionally lead the boy out on to the fjord or whatever to kill him. She got caught up in the moment and caused him to jump (temporary insanity?) but she never intended initially to cause his death. We would like to see a scene where one or both parents leads the kids into the woods, and the children fall asleep. The parent might see them sleeping so peacefully and decides then and there that death would be better than having to live a horrific life of famine, and perhaps blinded by fear and anguish, runs off and leaves them to die in the woods. More realistic, but no less heartbreaking. This would demonstrate the reality of the famines at the time. Sometimes parents felt they had no choice.

We also discussed the idea of the witch not being as "witchy" as the stepmother. To show the bias of the time toward stepmothers. Also it would create an interesting dynamic between the children and the mother that was present in The Juniper Tree.

Hansel and Gretel Thoughts

Since Keene's version of "The Juniper Tree" obviously did not follow the fairy tale "The Juniper Tree" I think that we should include the following scenes:

- Mother and father falling on hard times (scene should be really dry and empty) struggling with putting food on the table - it would be interesting to add a twist by maybe having Hansel and Gretel be greedy at dinnertime by asking for more bread, etc even to the point of taking the parents' food...

- Mother, father, Hansel, Gretel going into the woods, children falling asleep (like Erin said), and parents leaving them

- Instead of having them go back to their house using the pebbles, i think it would be interesting to keep portraying Hansel and Gretel as greedy and have Hansel start dropping breadcrumbs but have him end up eating most of the bread because he is hungry. (this portrays Hansel as selfish - i agree with Nikki that it would be cool to have Hansel be a villain as well as the witch)

- I think Keene would spend less time on the "witch" portion of the story. Maybe we can have the witch struggling for food (because of the famine or whatnot) which puts less blame on her, just like in "The Juniper Tree" where the blame is less on the stepmom and more on Johannes.

These are my suggestions!

H&G Collaborative

I would like to begin by thinking that Keene would portray the witch as a normal woman, who is not necessarily evil, as he does in The Juniper Tree.  I feel Hansel and Gretel's mother herself would be the more "witchy" of the two.  As for time and place, I feel that once again it would be very undefined.  Although we would hear of the famine, there would be no other characters around, and no trace of other humanity except for those who are the main part of the story.  The landscape would be bare, and desolate looking.  Additionally, based on what we have seen of Keene, Hansel and Gretel may be portrayed as the villian as well as the innocent, depending on the portion of the movie taking place. 

Assignment 2- 20.Jan 2009

Hi Nikki, Erin, Benton, Michelle, Tiffany and Emily,

Below is a copy of the Assignment that was discussed in class today.


The first thing about this assignment that differentiates it from last week's, is the fact that it is going to be TEAMWORK!

Given that you have watched ,,The Juniper Tree'' and attended today's discussion of what this movie portrays, try to, as a group, come up with what Keene's version of ,,Hansel and Gretel", would be. In what sort of a world could this story have been written?

We could assume that the kids are 11 and 13 and the witch is ,,a lone woman'' who lives in a hut in the forest.

Looking forward to all your version of ,,Hansel and Gretel"!

Ann

First response

I found Darnton's essay to be more successful in illuminating fairy tales as not just for children. The combination of Freudian analysis on Little Red Riding Hood as well as a broader examination of the oral tradition as it existed in Europe at the time this story began to circulate made me think of fairy tales the way I think about other, more literary fiction--organic, dynamic pieces that spring from conditions and circumstances affecting real people. In the same way that certain kinds of foods are used in recipes because they tend to absorb flavors in a particular fashion, fairy tales are a reflection of the time, place, and mindset of the storyteller. A retelling of Cinderella will be vastly different, depending on who is telling the story. Darnton takes this idea and examines it in clinical, analytical detail, to great effect.

Sorry this is so late, my internet keeps crashing...

Posts in time!

Great to see that most of you have your posts in on time. They make for very interesting reading!

Introduction

Hi, I'm Emily Schweickhardt.

I'm a senior English and Psychology double-major, an an Art History minor.

Bettelheim

The Struggle for Meaning essay convinced me more that fairy tales do go beyond children's entertainment.  Particularly the point that fairy tales teach about the inner problems of human beings, and about solutions to predicaments in society.  In other words, fairy tales do more than provide a moral education: they give children a chance to "understand himself in the complex world with which he must learn to cope."  Fairy tales are clearly more than entertainment if they have the ability to carry messages to the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious minds simultaneously.  The fact that fairy tales can address all sorts of deep and complex problems, such as "narcicisstic disappointments," "oedipal conflicts," :sibling rivalries," and so on, speaks in and of itself.  By providing grounds for resolution, fairy tales enable children to acquire satisfaction with themselves, Bettelheim states.  With such statements, Bettelheim makes it clear that fairy tales are more than entertainment, because they do more than simply arouse curiosity, which entertainment does: they allow the child to find meaning in life, which Bettelheim says is the most important and difficult task to successfully accomplish in the period of childhood.

Response #1

As I see it, the key difference between these two articles has to do with what they perceive their subject matter to be. While reading Bettelheim, it appears that the author is much more concerned with the stories we tell our children and how that relates to their psychological make up. While this may be an interesting topic, it is clear that he really isn't talking about fairy tales at all. He is interested in the popular versions of Red Riding Hood and why this story is better for young children than other stories parents may read, but in this analysis he doesn't really get to the root of what fairy tales are, rather what their modern transformation into children's stories can do for our kids. Darnton, on the other hand, sees this gap in Bettelheim's argument. There's nothing particularly wrong with Bettelheim's analysis of the effects of good stories on children, but the fact is that this argument really doesn't have anything to do with fairy tales at all, just children's stories, many of which may be derived from sources like the Grimms and Mother Goose. In Darnton's article, he focuses more on the anthropological importance and development of fairy tales: who told them, why they are what they are, how they were perceived by the audience, et cetera. This is a much better template to understanding these tales and their unique place in the history of oral and written literature. Darnton sees fairy tales as what they really are and tries to understand them in that light rather than going down Bettelheim's road of placing other meanings on a particularly recent incarnation of these stories. In the end, Darnton's view provides a much richer and more accurate way of seeing fairy tales both within and out of their historical contexts. Fairy tales are evolving, vague, unique, enriching, sometimes unsettling, and thoughtful pieces of history, not merely bedtime stories to keep our kids from growing up crazy.

-Benton Payne

PS-

I'm Benton Payne (first name is Marshall, though I don't go by it)
I'm a Film Studies / History Major and I'm always looking for different ways to perceive the art of storytelling